Book Description
For this authoritative post-cold-war biography of Shostakovich's illustrious but turbulent career under Soviet rule, Laurel E. Fay has gone back to primary documents: Shostakovich's many letters, concert programs and reviews, newspaper articles, and diaries of his contemporaries. An indefatigable worker, he wrote his arresting music despite deprivations during the Nazi invasion and constant surveillance under Stalin's regime. Shostakovich's life is a fascinating example of the paradoxes of living as an artist under totalitarian rule. In August 1942, his Seventh Symphony, written as a protest against fascism, was performed in Nazi-besieged Leningrad by the city's surviving musicians, and was triumphantly broadcast to the German troops, who had been bombarded beforehand to silence them. Alone among his artistic peers, he survived successive Stalinist cultural purges and won the Stalin Prize five times, yet in 1948 he was dismissed from his conservatory teaching positions, and many of his works were banned from performance. He prudently censored himself, in one case putting aside a work based on Jewish folk poems. Under later regimes he balanced a career as a model Soviet, holding government positions and acting as an international ambassador with his unflagging artistic ambitions. In the years since his death in 1975, many have embraced a view of Shostakovich as a lifelong dissident who encoded anti-Communist messages in his music. This lucid and fascinating biography demonstrates that the reality was much more complex. Laurel Fay's book includes a detailed list of works, a glossary of names, and an extensive bibliography, making it an indispensable resource for future studies of Shostakovich.
Customer Reviews:
Will There Ever Be A Definitive Shostakovich Biography?.......2007-03-13
I have read 'Testimony' by Volkov, and followed much of the controversy about it. It is a fascinating read to be sure, but does it truly reflect Shostakovich the man? While this book by Fay does have it's limitations, I found it a valuable counter weight to 'Testimony'.
Shostakovich was a great composer, no doubt. His complacency within the Soviet system of the time can be looked at in different ways. What I have gotten out of both of these books is that Shostakovich was a man that in many ways was beaten by a repressive system. For those who did not directly experience those times, it is easy to criticize the man for some of the things he did. We must remember that it was literally a matter of life and death. Not just for him, but for his family too. It is no wonder that he became so secretive.
And it is that secretive nature that makes me wonder if there ever will be a definitive biography. We also must not lose sight of the fact that it is his music first and foremost that has attracted music lovers to him. Shostakovich wrote much music, with much of it of the highest quality. That he was all too human like the rest of us doesn't detract from that. That he could write so much music that touches the humanity of others while suffering under a repressive regime is remarkable.
I have been a Shostakovich 'fan' for a long time, and he has carved out a place in musical history as a great composer. As such, scholarship about his life and work will continue to provide more insights on both. I enjoyed this book, despite any shortcomings. There is much information and value within it. That is why I gave it 5 stars, and would recommend anyone interested in the man and his music to read it.
Ease up a bit please!.......2005-04-25
This is a fine book--well researched and well written. I had a great time with it as a casual on-the-sofa read and learned much from it about a composer I like. I recommend it. I'm a little stunned by the viciousness of some of the revues--failing to deify the composer is no crime; having opinions--even controversial ones--about what motivated the composer is just a biographer's job. Some of the really negative comments about the book, and more disturbingly, the author make me wonder if she's being brutally victimized a bit here--ironically, in an almost Stalinist way. I'm having difficulty imagining why the venom. Is there a Shostakovich cult?
If you are interested in learning about the man and his music the number of books available on the topic is surprisingly small--you might as well read them all. In contrast the controversies surrounding Shostakovich's life are absurdly large. The definitive book on Shostakovich won't be written until everyone who had anything to do with him is long gone and emotional involvement has settled a bit. Even then, well, no great composer, nobody in fact, ever gets consistent appraisals from biographers.
No, sorry, I don't think DS was the "greatest" composer of the last century, I'm not even sure he was the bravest. I'm not sure those words really apply at all to evaluating the creators of art music during that bizarre time. I think we lacked a single stand-out genius on the order or Mozart, Beethoven, or Bach but I'd argue the 20th Century had numerically more genuinely inspired and original composers than any other era. Mull over Bach, Telemann, Handel, Vivaldi and lesser lights of the first half of the 18th Century--then mull over Bartok, Stravinsky, Nielsen, Shostakovich, Strauss, Janacek, Puccini, Mahler, Elgar, Prokofiev and the long list that follows--up to mid-century when real problems start to show. No mediocities in their ranks but no Beethovens either. Something unprecedented was going on back then, maybe Western art music's Indian Summer. There's a good book in this I'm sure.
Irony is that during a time when so much compositional genius was floating around, the interest in art music began to decline--rapidly. This may in fact account for the diversity of the music of that time and, more importantly, the inconsistency of it. You can actually trace the careers of various composers as they create and then respond to the lack of response or to extramusical pressures that make a hash of their individual geniuses.
I'd say Shostakovich, then, was not the greatest 20th Century composer but he is the greatest example of the dilemma of the 20th Century composer.
"Scholarship" of this sort ----.......2005-03-21
-- reminds me of a line from "Apocalypse Now"
"You are an errand boy, sent by clerks to collect a bill."
To write 'from the library' as it were, and not interview those living who new the man and his work and the times first hand, is to perpetrate a fraud.
An Injustice To A Great Man.......2004-08-26
aDmitri Shostakovich (DDS) was probably the gretest composer of the 20th century. Unfortunately, a burning controversy has unjustly erupted around the perceptions of his personality and actions during his illustrious career regarding the question of whether he was a principled opponent of the totalitarian
Communist and Stalinist regime of the USSR, or whether he was a passive opportunist who used his talents to ensure a comfortable life for himself at the expense of his moral integrity. In 1979 Solomon Volkov published DDS's memoirs in the West. This showed DDS to be a bitter opponent of the regime, writing music that reflected this, while at the same time, castigating himself for the public face he had to show ostensibly in support of the system (just as everyone else had to do in order to survive especially during Stalin's terror, but also during other, more supposedly "relaxed" periods). The author of this book being reviewed, Laurel Fay, has devoted the last 25 years to a crusade trying to discredit Volkov and the image of DDS he presented to the world, saying that while DDS was a great composer, his music doesn't reflect any protest against the system which he willingly accomodated himself to. This biography is another contribution to this argument.
Unfortunately for her position, the fall of the Communist regime in the USSR has allowed many friends and relatives of DDS to speak openly for the first time and their view of him overwhelmingly strengthens the view of DDS provided by Volkov's book "Testimony" and rebuts Fay's point of view.
Fay seems to be oblivious to the terrible dilemmas that people faced living in the totalitarian regime that was the USSR and there was terrible pressure on everyone to conform. This book contains many quotations of what people call "source material" consisting of quotations from articles in Pravda (the USSR's official newspaper) and other "official sources". Fay accepts these basically uncritically, apparently unaware that these organs of communication did not exist in order to provide information to their readers, but rather to propagandize in favor the the regime, regardless of the truth. She does acknowledge in the book that articles that had DDS's name on them, supposedly indicating that he had written them, often were written by others and submitted to him for his signature, which he provided without even looking at the manuscript, but she then goes on to say that this doesn't necessarily mean that he DIDN'T
agree with what was written there. Fay does not bring any proof for this statement, and so the reader has no way of knowing which viewpoints expressed in the articles DDS supposedly agreed with. Perceptive people in the USSR ignored the propaganda entirely and didn't take what was written in these "official" organs seriously at all.
Fay also claims that DDS's composing his famous "From Jewish Folk Poetry" in 1948 which was rejected by the establishment musical authorities because of the the gathering "anti-Cosmopolitan" (i.e. anti-Jewish) campaign was the result of a pathetic attempt to please the authorities by writing music based on traditional folk music of the various nationalities of the USSR and it was just his "rotten luck" to choose a group that would soon be under attack. This claim of Fay's is nonsense because the the anti-Jewish attitude of the regime started already in 1942 and was accelerating in 1948. DDS had many Jewish friends and contacts with people in high places and was quite aware of what was going on. He wrote this piece as a protest against the regime's anti-Semitism! Fay is again oblivious to this.
Finally, Fay views DDS's joining the Communist Party in 1960 as another attempt to promote his personal interests, yet Fay has fallen for the prevailing myth that after Stalin died and the "Thaw" began under Khruschev, the regime stopped terrorizing the intelligentsia. In reality, there was still coercion, but it was done in a more subtle manner. Instead of threatening arrest and deportation to the Gulag, people could be threatened instead by refusing to allow one's children into good schools and jobs, or possibly, in DDS's case, refusal to allow decent medical care since his health was deteriorating. DDS castigated himself because he felt he had capitulated to the system, but it is probable that he had no other choice. As one gets older, it is harder and harder to keep up the frontal struggle.
In summary, a reader interested in the life of DDS would be better served by reading "Testimony", Elizbeth Wilson's "Shostakovich-A Life Remembered", Ho and Feofanov's "Shostakovich Reconsidered" and by looking at thewritings of the late Ian MacDonald on his "Music Under Soviet Rule" website.
Flat Earthers and deep denial.......2004-06-17
This is one of the small numbers of books on Shostakovitch which is almost completely unreliable. There is a type of intellectual (mercifully rare now that the Berlin Wall is history) who delighted in telling us how wonderful in every wayb the Soviet Union was, how much delight, life and freedom could be found there. Evidence - such as the experienmces of those who had the misfortine to live there - were dismissed as looney tunes or fascist propaganda or some such. Somehow these flat earthers would never dream of living there themselves.
This book is one such. Don't touch it with a barge pole.
But do get Semyon Volkov's Testimony instead
I am amazed that fifteen years after the end of communism in Europe this intellectually bankrupt book is actually still available. It should be in the Black Humour section. It is certainly not scholarship.
Amazon.com
The story of Soviet composer Alfred Schnittke is one that will give pause even to the gods of irony. The descendent of German and Jewish inhabitants of what was once the German Volga S.S.R. in the Soviet Union, he received his first musical training as a young boy in Soviet-occupied Vienna. Baptized as a Roman Catholic at age 48 (although he had strong Russian Orthodox tendencies), this son of dedicated Communists employed a musical idiom almost as varied as his background. One of the most interesting aspects of Alexander Ivashkin's lucid account of the composer's life is his long struggle in the face of the hostility shown by the apparatchiks that ran the Soviet composer's union, a hostility that made it impossible for Schnittke to attend many performances of his works when they required a travel permit outside Soviet territory. Fortunately, as the regime approached collapse, the difficulties experienced by Schnittke and his fellow Soviet artists during the decades of Soviet rule abated. This entry in Phaidon's 20th-Century Composers series offers a well-written account of the essential aspects of Schnittke's life and work.
Customer Reviews:
some problems with this book.......2006-06-09
This book is a good, quick read, and, as it is apparently the only biography of Schnittke (at least in English), it will have to do. But it has more than a few printing errors; words are missing not only between pages 141 and 142, as another reviewer noted, but between 123 and 124; in addition, some lines are repeated on successive pages and there are other typos. Substantively, I did not feel after finishing the book that I knew what Schnittke was like as a person, other than that, later in life, he became a Christian of a mystical, if not crazy, bent, although the author would never put it negatively like that; he writes not a negative word about Schnittke or his music (though he does call him "a great human being"). Another problem with the book is that some of the author's descriptions of the music are almost meaningless (though I acknowledge that it is difficult to describe music). Examples include, "At the end of the symphony Shostakovich appears to draw aside real space, transporting us from gloomy everyday occurrences into the infinity of astral space." Or, "At times a particular interval becomes the principal character of a work. ... All these symbols ... ultimately enable one to widen the frame of the music as though into outer space." Finally, the author repeatedly refers to Schnittke's popularity and the throngs who attend performances of his music. I am only lately acquiring a taste for Schnittke's music, but it is an acquired taste, and I remain sceptical of the author's claims as to his popularity.
A very lightweight and loosely edited biography with little analysis of the music.......2005-10-02
This entry in Phaidon Press' biographies of 20th century composers describes the life and work of Alfred Schnittke, the great Russian postmodernist, and is written by noted Russian cellist and friend of the composer Alexander Ivashkin. The work was published in 1996, two years before Schnittke's death. However, because Schnittke's last years were fraught with ill health, there is a general supposition that his career had ended. How surprised Ivashkin must have been to see a final bust of activity from the composer's pen shortly after the book's appearance.
As with all of Phaidon Press' biographies, the focus here is on the life and surroundings of the composer. Ivashkin describes in detail the composer's youth in Engels and Vienna, his tribulations in the Moscow Conservatory, and his marriage and family life. His pieces are often mention in connection to the events that inspired them, such as the death of his mother that led to his Piano Quintet. Unfortunately, there is very little in the way of analysis of his works. What few scores are shown in the book are given only to spice up the text with illustrations, they are not used by Ivashkin to point out the important innovations of Schnittke's music.
Beyond this lightweight nature, the book is fraught with other problems. There is a lot of repetition, many events are presented out of chronological order (for example, a chapter on the 1970s going back to the 1960s), and much tighter editing was necessary. There is even an error with typesetting where a sentence somehow disappears between pages 141 and 142. Becuase the work was rather obnoxious in these regards, I wouldn't recommend it except to hardcore fans of Schnittke who want to read as much as possible about him, or to people who just want to know the general outline of his life without knowing how his pieces work.
A good survey for the lay reader, but too hagiographical.......2003-11-27
Ivashkin's biography of Schnittke is one of a number of titles now issued in Phaidon's consistently interesting series of books on contemporary composers. Ivashkin's book is very readable, and combines a potted biography of the composer with an introductory explanation of his major works. The book will certainly add some valuable knowledge to those who have heard--and been impressed by--Schnittke's music, and does not assume more than a surface knowledge of 20th century idioms.
The author makes little attempt at detailed technical descriptions of Schnittke's compositions, which may prove a demerit for the more serious student of music. I do not regard this as a flaw in the book--it is aimed at the lay reader, as are all in the series--but there are two more major issues I have with this book:
Firstly, it was written too early to cover the composer's last years, and the surprising return to composition--despite Schnittke's almost total paralysis--that yielded several as yet unrecorded works in the composer's last 18 months. Secondly, and more seriously, Ivashkin's closeness to the composer prevents him being entirely objective. Schnittke was far from being the most consistent composer of the post-war period, but Ivashkin seems very loath to make critical remarks about Schnittke's compositions--even when such criticism seems (at least to me) to be entirely merited. In one or two cases Ivashkin also avoids criticising Schnittke the man, even as he hints at grounds for doing so.
I hope a better biography will come along soon, but this will do for now. It's rather less of a book than this important composer deserves, but anyone reading it will know more about Schnittke the man and Schnittke the composer than they did before they picked it up.
excellent Schnittke book.......2002-03-29
This book is an excellent biography and overview of the music of Alfred Schnittke. The casual listener probably wouldn't be interested, but for those that love Schnittke's music this is a goldmine. It provides plenty of insight in the personal life of Schnittke and the events that helped shape his music. It details many of his personal political struggles (which would truly make comparisons to Shostakovich even clearer.)
There is also, of course, discussions on the music. No in depth analysis or anything, just good commentary on them. I don't have a musical education and the book was still quite enjoyable to me.
Another wonderful inclusion is the discography and the catalogue of works.
This will probably be the definative account of Schnittke's life (in English anyway.) One can only hope though that it will be updated as the book was written two years before Scnittke's death. I highly recommend this excellent book.
The book on Alfred Schnittke that you must have!.......1999-05-26
This book is the perfect introduction to the life of the late composer. I learned many details about his upbringing and his influences. The author let sometimes his own grief about the soviet system and some of its members set on fire his style. But he made me miss even more the opportunity to meet with Schnittke as he was in Banff in Canada few years ago. Thanks to the author a biography exists. Sadly it will have to be updated.I wished articles by Schnittke would be available in english as well as a more exhaustive interpretive catalog of his work and recordings. Thanks to Phaidon for a superb volume!
Book Description
Andrei Tarkovsky (1932-1986) is one of Russia's most influential and renowned filmmakers, despite an output of only seven feature films in twenty years. Revered by such filmmaking giants as Ingmar Bergman and Akira Kurosawa, Tarkovsky is famous for his use of long takes, languid pacing, dreamlike metaphorical imagery, and meditations on spirituality and the human soul. His Andrei Roublev, Solaris, and The Mirror are considered landmarks of postwar Russian cinema.
Andrei Tarkovsky: Interviews is the first English-language collection of interviews with and profiles of the filmmaker. It includes conversations originally published in French, Italian, Russian, and British periodicals. With pieces from 1962 through 1986, the collection spans the breadth of Tarkovsky's career.
In the volume, Tarkovsky candidly and articulately discusses the difficulties of making films under the censors of the Soviet Union. He explores his aesthetic ideology, filmmakers he admires, and his eventual self-exile from Russia. He talks about recurring images in his movies—water, horses, fire, snow—but adamantly refuses to divulge what they mean, as he feels that would impose his own meaning onto the audience. At times cagey and resistant to interviewers, Tarkovsky nevertheless reveals his vision and his rigorous devotion to his art.
Customer Reviews:
Essential Reading for any Tarkovsky Fan.......2007-03-08
This book is an absolutely fascinating read for any Tarkovsky fan. It gives a real insight into the individual films but more significantly it also helps you understand much better where Tarkovsky himself was coming from. It will also be of interest to people interested in modern cinema, but it is probably best to have seen most of Tarkovsky's films first (there are only about 7 of them). One amusing aspect of the book is seeing different interviewers ask the same, often stupid, questions over a twenty-year period. However, there is plenty of rich material in the book so the repeated questions do not really detract from it, indeed, it is amusing to watch how Tarkovsky deals with them in different times and different contexts.
The Greatest Director To Have Lived, Period!.......2006-11-01
This book of interviews with the master is a must for all who love great film, and especially fans of Russian Cinema (and of course Tarkovsky). Thanks Mr. Gianvito!
Book Description
This autobiography is a luminous portrait of a Soviet artist, richly woven against the backdrop of Soviet History. Translated by Guy Daniels.
Customer Reviews:
Perhaps the Best Operatic Autobiography Ever.......2007-08-09
Of all the singer's biographies I've read (which is plenty!) this remains at the top of the heap. It is a journey that could have only come from the pen of Vishnevskaya and, unlike so many autobiographies which eventually turn into a "And then I sang _____, and then I sang at the White House, and then I . . . " Galina reads almost like a novel. Her description of the Soviet Union during the war years is positively chilling. The road she took to success, punctuated by hardships followed by tragedies is never less than enthralling. How many biographies can truly be called "page turners?" Well, this is one!
The insights she gives into the Soviet system, the role and treatment of artists by the government, her personal views on politicians, singers, composers all come off with rare candor that almost caused me to blush.
Feeling mezzo soprano Elena Obratzsova had been been a betrayer, she humiliated the young singer in public shouting out "Judas" writing of Obratzsova's exit, "Like a snake with a broken spine, she crawled past the amazed Americans, who stood aside to let her pass." Ouch!
My favorite passage from the book succinctly, and pointedly paints the most vivid picture of the Soviet system:
In this vast, monstrous theater, with our faces twisted by
underground jargon, we Soviets wriggle and squirm for one
another. We are actors by compulsion, not by calling, in an
amateur theater run by no one. And all our lives we perform our
endless, pathetic comedy. There are no spectators, only
participants. Nor is there a script, only improvisation. And
knowing neither plot nor denoument, we act.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Whether or not one is a fan of opera, this will prove to be an enlightening, fascinating read.
Outstanding autobiography!!!.......2007-02-09
[Taken from my review of the hardcover edition - same comments nevertheless apply.]
As one reads this book, where Gospozhá (Mme.) Vishñévskaja is throughout blunt about everything she turns her pen to, one really gets not only great entertainment generally (it is most excellently written!!); it is a superb window into the Russian soul at its best in addition to being an outstanding analysis of the conditions of artistry, artistic life and life generally under the Soviets!! It also serves as an excellent guide into the great composer Dmítriy Dmitrjévich Shostakóvich's life and artistry as well as that of her husband Mstíslav Ljeopóljdovich Rostropóvich; furthermore, its recounting some of the scandals forced by the Communist leadership when they couldn't accept the fame and worthiness of such books as "Doktor Zhivágo", "The First Circle" and "The GULag Archipelago" as well as such pieces of music as "Lady Macbeth of Mcjénsk District", the 13th Symphony and enough other works of Shostakóvich is positively juicy even in the midst of the disgust and revolt caused by reading how intolerant Communism really is!!!
An ABSOLUTE MUST for any intelligent person to read and have in his library - especially if he is into the arts and/or politics in any way whatsoever!!!! This is one of those relatively rare books which both entertains AND edifies - and does it all superbly (what a life experience on her part!)!!!!
[POSTSCRIPT: This very book (which I've enjoyed rereading MANY, many times!!!) also was critically influential in preparing me to go hear - and fall in love with!!!! - Shostakóvich's operatic 'magnum opus' "Lady Macbeth of Mcjénsk District" when it was given its Canadian première by the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto in 1988.]
a fierceness requited..........2002-11-24
Vishnevskaya's reputation for forthrightness AND the sub-title she chooses here --A Russian Story-- indicate strong intentions for this book. Not 'MY Russian Story', but 'A Russian Story', because Galina Vishnevskaya tells an epic Russian story, honoring with a severe truth the Russia of sorrows of which her story forms but a unique part. This is no prima donna's idle tableau of a curtained career. Vishnevskaya's art comes of suffering, & she doesn't head down that road. She divulges her art generously, but her attitude never self serves. Her aim is always higher - she's interested to say not only what HAPPENED in Soviet life, but what WAS. and WHO!--- Vishnevskaya regularly excoriates with galvinizing abandon the soviet lackeys with whom she had to deal! She names names and motives, because it's the damned truth! The West in general and artists in particular owe a huge debt to Rostropovich and Vishnevskaya for the willing sacrifice of themselves in exile for the simple truth. Rostropovich garners the commentary in the West with the cello & conducting, but Galina is the heart of genius, and THAT seems the telling component in this book. Her depiction of Solzhenitsyn is heartrending, and stands as the book's axis; everything leads to it, and derives from it. Her friendship with Shostakovich, her brilliant feelings toward him-- an almost daughterly reverence informed by the highest artistic aesthetic. It's also through the part Shostakovich played in her life that we meet a musically learned Galina as well. She was a musician FIRST, singer second. How rare and wonderful - no wonder Slava fell in love! Galina dances with the shadows of Shostakovich throughout, & it's one of the book's endearing aspects. There are wonderful stories too of Britten and his music, & a surprisingly frank exposition of Furtseva, soviet Minister of Culture, whose enigmatic machinations both helped and ill-served Galina more than once. Vishnevskaya can sing AND write! The book ends when you don't want it to, leaving Russia... it's ultimately a love story -- Galina and Russia. Maybe she'll yet write her American story.
Galina: A Russian Story.......2002-08-27
Galina, né Pavlova, has many interesting stories to tell about her remarkable life: as a baby abandoned by her parents, an army officier and a polish/gypsy mother, she was raised by her paternal grandmother. Galina overcame so many difficulties in her life, surviving the blockade of Leningrad during the war and so many hardships such as tuberculosis and starvation. Unlike so many singers' biographies, this intelligent artist shares more than anecdotes about the opera world and her many successes in the theatre. She speaks of her personal friendships with people such as composer Shostakovich her neighbor, scientist Andrei Sakarov, also a neighbor, and writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a live-in guest in her dacha. There is much commentary written with not a little bitterness about the Soviet authorities who so often thwarted her career and blocked free expression in the arts within the Soviet country and in other countries where she was invited to perform. She writes very well and with much insight into philosophy, human relations, personalities, etc. I found the book very absorbing and hard to put down. Her close friendship with British composer Benjamin Britten also yields many stories of their memorable times together both at Aldeburgh and on vacation in Armenia and Russia. Her remarkable and at times stormy marriage to cellist/conductor Mstislav Rostropovich, her third husband, brought about big changes in her life, and their mutual courage and boldness to stand up for freedom against the Soviet regime cost them their citizenship.
"Everything was backwards...".......2002-08-04
"...We were actors in real life and human beings on the stage."
Thus spake Galina Vishnevskaya, in interviews she and her husband, Mstislav ("Slava") Rostropovich, gave in Paris in 1983, captured in a companion book ("Russia, Music, and Liberty: Conversations with Claude Samuel.") to this one. The quotation barely begins to suggest the Kafkaesque world in which they lived, when they were musical artists of the highest order in the Soviet Union.
Vishnevskaya was a "prima donna assoluta" at the Bolshoi Opera during her prime, arguably the finest Russian soprano of all time. And, as her prime overlapped those of Maria Callas and Renata Tebaldi, one can only wonder what her international reputation might have been had her career been entirely in the west; the first two-thirds (and best) part of it was largely away from the gaze of the international music community.
This is, as she subtitles it, her "Russian story" covering her life up to the final hours in 1976 when she left the Soviet Union, eventually (two years later) as an exile. And it almost ended before it ever started.
Born in poverty to parents who abandoned her to her grandmother, she possessed an incredible voice as a child. Largely self-taught, and then - at age sixteen - improperly taught - she didn't learn proper voice technique until after she had established a beginning career in operetta. Then she contracted TB, and the doctor caring for her offered that the only cure - which she refused - was to collapse the infected lung. It was only by mortgaging her future singing fees for black-market purchase of scarce antibiotics that she recovered.
In 1952, in her mid-twenties, she auditioned for the youth group of the Bolshoi Opera Theater, was instantly accepted, underwent a meteoric rise through the Bolshoi ranks on her voice and talent, and soon became the prima diva of the troupe. In 1955, she met Rostropovich, whose courting of her is one of the few lighthearted sections of an otherwise chilling tale of intrigue, deception and lies in the intelligentsia circles in which the pair of them existed and performed.
The next two decades (1955 - 1975) of this journal focus largely on one person, and the special relationship that they had with him: Dmitri Shostakovich. As artists, it was only natural that their paths would cross and thereafter, for the rest of Shostakovich's life, intertwine. But this was more than acquaintanceship; it was friendship based on trust during Shostakovich's years when it was virtually impossible for him to trust anyone. And Vishnevskaya defended that trust with the ferocity of a tiger. One anecdote of her ferocity will suffice as an example.
In the early 1960's, the poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko was well-published in "accepted" Soviet literature journals despite his "rebelliousness." His famous poem, "Babi Yar" (1961) about the German slaughter of Ukranian Jews during WW II, gained overnight success, and Shostakovich, moved by the poem's message, placed it at the core of his Thirteenth Symphony with Yevtushenko's warm agreement. The work received its Russian premiere "as is" on December 18, 1962, and was tumultuously received by the audience but not by officials of the state, who read into it a message of Russian complicity in the matter of anti-Semitism, a subtext of Yevtushenko's that was undoubtedly accurate, as he revised the text shortly after the premiere without consulting Shostakovich. Some years later, in London where Vishnevskaya and Rostropovich met up with Yevtushenko, Vishnevskaya gave Yevtushenko a tongue-lashing over his "revisionism" that runs several pages.
In an act of supreme political courage involving another Russian writer, Rostropovich provided refuge, for four years in the early '70's, to Alexander Solzhenitsyn, whose writings on conditions in the Soviet Union were officially banned. Solzhenitsyn subsequently went into political exile, but this act of courage was to have its effect on the careers of Vishnevskaya and Rostropovich, particularly the latter, who for all intents and purposes had his abilities to perform and conduct stripped away from him. Only by "pulling in markers" were the two of them able to secure permission from Brezhnev to go abroad on a two-year "artistic leave."
"Galina" ends on a note of uncertainty and apprehension, as Vishnevskaya, in 1976, boards a plane with her two daughters to join Rostropovich in the West, eventually (1978) in exile when their citizenship was revoked for the Solzhenitsyn matter. But this is merely the end of her "first" Russian life and the beginning of another, more international, one. Her own career as a diva continued for nearly another decade; Rostropovich went on to become an internationally-known conductor while continuing his career as a preeminent cellist; with "perestroika," they made an historic return to Moscow in 1990 (after Gorbachev restored their citizenship), at which Rostropovich conducted what is to me the finest performance of Tchaikovsky's "Pathetique" Symphony (immortalized on a Sony CD that also included Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever" and William Schuman's orchestral arrangement of Charles Ives's "Variations on America").
Nowadays Vishnevskaya loves to brag about her six thoroughly-Americanized grandchildren. They oversee the Rostropovich-Vishnevskaya Foundation, a charity for immunizing Russian children against disease. She recently founded the Galina Vishnevskaya School of Opera in Moscow, for providing master classes to promising young artists. All in all, a rather remarkable "follow-up" for this peripatetic pair of seemingly perpetually-young 75-year-olds.
But the clock cannot be turned back. "Galina" serves as a gripping reminder of how things were over the fifty years that the two of them spent in the Soviet Union. And, at least as important for me, it serves as one of the most honest and accurate appraisals of Dmitri Shostakovich the person as one is likely to find, from one who knew and loved him as a true friend.
Even in a totalitarian society, supreme artistry can sometimes carry clout. For Vishnevskaya (and Rostropovich), there was enough clout - barely - to get out and "live to tell about it." Thankfully.
Bob Zeidler
Book Description
A richly detailed portrait of a man whose complex character, like his music, combined the traditional and the contemporary in odd and unexpected ways.
Customer Reviews:
The Mind and Music of Prokofiev.......2007-05-02
Harlow Robinson spent years in Soviet Russia researching Prokofiev during the height of the Cold War. His research does not just include manuscripts and letters but also involves many personal conversations with those who knew Prokofiev and even with those who persecuted Prokofiev. As a result he navigates his way through Prokofiev's life with that added dimension of relating personally to those events. Robinson's writing is interesting and warm without being too academic or dry. This book seems to be intended for any real fan of Prokofiev. Lastly, this book really strives to explain some of the perplexities of Prokofiev's decisions. In particular, Robinson strives to explain why Prokofiev needed to return to Russia after his extended residence in Paris. This book is well worth the time to read.
popular biography that brings rewards.......2005-04-06
Robinson's is a useful popular biography of Prokofiev that is better researched and better written than any other English language bio of the great composer. Equal measure is given to Prokofiev's time in the West, and to his life after returning to Russia. There's much that's interesting here - a persistent exploration of Prokofiev's quixotic relationship with Diaghilev, generous delving into the composer's personal life, including especially some revealing passages on the almost uncharacteristic affection Prokofiev lavished on his children, and a resonant view of his work habits. Prokofiev's career disappointments were many, some even tragic, and the author doesnt beat around the bush, but the admirable thread of fierce devotion maintained by Prokofiev toward his own unquenchable musical purpose is thoughtfully argued by Robinson throughout the book, indeed it's one its strengths. The author even notes details of some of Prokofiev's foppish Parisian clothing that helped start him off on the wrong foot on his return to Russia. There are a number of subtle moments like that where one can discern the winning hand of a committed biographer. The importance of Prokofiev's canon of works is denied a hearing for the most part, but the book suffers little for that. The useful appendices include a chronology and a catalogue (by genre) of the composer's works, in addition to a healthy bibliography. I recommend this book for anyone just taking up the subject of Prokofiev. Listening again to the seventh Piano Sonata would perhaps serve more succinctly for the already initiated.
Well worth reading.......2002-09-23
Harlow Robinson's book is excellent; well worth reading. He strikes the right balance between the composer's personal charateristics and the body of his musical creation. The book is rich in detail, yet to-the-point; it is objective, yet reflects the complexity of this sometimes very unpleasant genius. It is perfectly comprehensible for the interested non-expert who has invested a good deal of time listening to Prokofiev's music, and seeing his movies, ballets and operas. As a Russian speaker familiar with every day speech and everyday life in the Soviet Union, I can say that Mr Robinson has a keen understanding of that culture, right down to having a very fine ear for transliterations. The composer is the Beethoven of the twentieth century: the one who has created the musical language which is so much a part of us that we take it for granted. Robinson brings us the man and the mind behind that language.
A core addition to Music History supplemental reading lists.......2002-08-09
Sergei Prokofiev: A Biography by Harlow Robinson (Professor of Modern Languages and History, Northeastern University) is an exhaustive, detailed, scholarly, and documented account of the life, times, inspiration, and personal history of acclaimed Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953). A handful of black-and-white photographs and a brand new foreword and afterword by author Harlow Robinson enhance this reprint of the most thorough Prokofiev biography to be found in the English language to date. A superbly written, insightfully informated, and ighly recommended for anyone with a keen interest in the evolution of individual musical greatness as reflected in the life and work of a seminal European composer, Sergei Prokofiev is a core addition to any Music History supplemental reading lists and academic reference collections.
Too glib and superficial to be informative!.......2002-05-14
I read this book when it first appeared some ten years ago, having read much of the other work on P. (books by Israel Nestyev, Victor Seroff, etc.). Indeed there is a lack of good literature on P. in English. Unfortunately, Robinson's book is sadly written-down and dumbed-down for a sub-TIME-Magazine reading public. It is not necessary to do so to write a good, readable, un-academic biography (compare the superb bio of poet Marina Tsvetaeva by Viktoria Schweitzer). So this book wasted a fine opportunity: its evaluations of both life and works are simplistic. Robinson claims to be "above" the ideological divisions of Cold War Prokofiev scholarship (e.g. pre-Stalinist vs. Socialist Realist Prokofiev), but he does not engage this problem at all, at least not in any thoughtful way, and blurs over it with bland cheery platitudes. Disappointing!
Customer Reviews:
Stop buying this book.......2007-07-23
Regardless of this book being a "good read," I think its existence is harmful to the name of Shostakovich. Much research has been done by Laurel Fay in regards to this--check out The Shostakovich Casebook for more information regarding this, as well as a good read about Soviet culture and Shostakovich's life. But this book is not for those interested in Shostakovich, and the fact that it is so popular is disturbing since so much of it is so false.
An important view into the composer's musical life.......2006-10-01
I bought this used from an Amazon vendor for the Shostakovich year about the same time I bought the new set of symphonies by Kitaenko and the Cologne Gurzenich Orchestra. I didn't expect I would listen to all the symphonies before finishing the book, which I expected -- from everything I'd read about it for 20 years -- to be a riveting engagement.
Sad to say, it was not. The book is a set of professional memoirs from the author at the end of his life, presented through the voice of Solomon Volkov, who knew the composer as editor of a Soviet musical publication.
Since the book covers Shostakovich at the end of his life -- he told Volkov not to publish it while he was alive -- it is a tome of his bitterness built up over the decades. Shostakovich goes on for pages about other musicians, people lost to the Stalin purges, his teacher Glazunov and others in the Soviet artistic intelligentsia. The book covers virtually no personal ground for the composer; there is nothing in it about his children other than a few photos.
Many of the famous quotes attributed to Shostakovich, including "my symphonies are tombstones" are included in the text. You have to get about halfway through the thing before it goes into any detail in the important matters about Shostakovich's music, its hidden messages only legible to those who knew him at the time, and what he had to do to publish these works during the era of Stalin's Soviet realism.
Shostakovich's famous wit and cynicism appear much earlier in these pages. His distaste for Toscanini is recited in the first 25 pages. He's onto a split view of Stravinsky 5 or 6 pages later. Not much later, he says Prokofiev had the soul of a goose and a chip on his shoulder. A few pages later he called Russian conductor Alexander Gauk "a rare specimen of stupidity." He has even harsher words for other composers and artists.
I was a little disappointed by all this, to be honest. I expected more of a polemic on Soviet society and less of a laissez faire view of the composer's artistic life and friends. The book spends more time on Shostakovich's trip to New York in 1947 and his disdain of American reporters than it does on any aspect of his childhood, marriages, or life with his children. And that wasn't much, either.
Still, this is an important perspective on the 20th century's most important and accomplished symphonist, whose music has been celebrated this year. Through its discussion of Shostakovich fulfilling the Russina "yurodivy" role, we intrinsically understand the finale of his great 5th Symphony is the joy of forced labor. We have an idea the noisy and cacaphonous sections of his 4th Symphony are his fear of the secret police taking him away. We know his 8th symphony is more about ther rigors of totalitarianism than Russia's Great Patriotic War.
For this, the book is an enduring view into the mind and artistic life of the composer that probably best illuminated life in Soviet Russia. There is no mirror of the composer that was considered a faithful communist and wunderkind after composing the wonderful and joyous 1st Symphony. That person does not exist in this book and his memoirs are not included.
Conversations With Shostakovich.......2006-09-15
Testimony: The Memories of Dmitri Shostakovich has undergone a lot of scrutiny since it was published in 1979. It was accepted as authentic by many at the time, was treated as a fraud and by others and with skepticism by people like Maxim Shostakovich. Seventeen years later, I think that we can accept this book as memories related to Solomon Volkov by the composer; this year a new edition of the book will appear in Russia with a foreword by Shostakovich's daughter Galya and Maxim. Their acceptance of the book has helped to convince me that it is authentic.
However, this is hardly a comprehensive book of memories. The book covers Shostakovich's professional life rather than his personal life; there is little mentioned about the composer's family. His wife Nina is mentioned only once in noting that Lady Macbeth was dedicated to her. The important people in Dmitri Shostakovich's professional life, like Glazunov, Tukhachesvsky and Meyerhold are much more fully portrayed, and there are some interesting anecdotes about them and many of Shostakovich's colleagues. But perhaps what is most fascinating parts of the book deal with the frustration and horror with which Shostakovich describes life under Stalin. I found this part of the book chilling and reading it gave me a fuller understanding of what life is like not only without freedom but to live with fear.
The book reads like an interview but without the questions that are being asked of the composer. It is as if a series on anecdotes were collected together to form each chapter. But what has always convinced me that the majority of Testimony reflected the composer's thought is that these anecdotes square with encounters with the composer that were recorded by his friends and colleagues. Compare the information from Elizabeth Wilson's book on Dmitri Shostakovich to Testimony and similarities can easily be found. Mstislav Rostropovich considered this book to be a collection of anecdotes made by the composer.
I find that the text flows nicely and the informal tone makes for fast reading. Although Testimony may not be the perfect book of memories it does represent an important source of Shostakovich's thoughts on his career and many of the people he worked with.
Be Careful.......2006-01-16
How can one really rate this book? It has obviously created a camp of "scholars" (known as the "revisionists") who would like to change the biography of Shostakovich, and provide concrete (anti-Soviet) meaning for his music. While this makes for interesting reading, the truth is the authenticity of this book is questionable. One should (at least) be aware of its criticisms before taking this book as truth!
Of course, Shostakovich is one of the most profound composers in the history of music, and we should interpret his works. But to ascribe a certain meaning to his music based on words that cannot be authenticated would only impoverish his music. Great art is meant to be contemplated for a lifetime, not easily understood. There are some who, after reading this book, have tried to over-simplify Shostakovich's art.
If you are reading this book for academic purposes, be careful. Ensure you explore all the debate over "Testimony." I suggest reading "A Shostakovich Casebook" edited by Malcolm Hamrick Brown immediately after reading "Testimony." Good luck.
Undoubtedly a fraud.............2005-12-23
Althought a fascinating read, the evidence overwhelmingly proves that 'Testimony' is a fraud. Laurel E. Fay's two studies of the subject, 'Shostakovich vs. Volkov: Whose Testimony?' (1980) and 'Volkov's Testimony Reconsidered' (2002) completely destroy the evidence for the validity of this work. Basically, the only pages of 'Testimony' that Shostakovich signed are completely stolen from earlier published words of the composer, absolutely word to word, maintaining even the pagination of the original articles. This, despite the fact that Volkov (who worked for the paper that published these) denies any knowledge of them.
'Testimony' should definitely be read alongside 'A Shostakovich Casebook' (edited by Malcom Brown, 2004) if fellow readers wish to gain a more complete understanding not only of these 'memoirs', but of Shostakovich himself.
Average customer rating:
- This is a good, thorough beginning book on Shostakovich
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Shostakovich: The Illustrated Lives of the Great Composers
Eric Roseberry
Manufacturer: Omnibus Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 Shostakovich, Dmitrii
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ASIN: 0711902585 |
Book Description
This series of biographies presents the great composers against the background of their times. Each draws on personal letters and recollections, engravings, paintings and, when they exist, photographs, to present a complete picture of the composer's life.
Customer Reviews:
This is a good, thorough beginning book on Shostakovich.......1999-05-06
Over the course of the last few months I have been nursing an ever increasing love of Shostakovich. This is the first book I have read on the master and, in light of other readings I have done (Volkov, Fanning, MacDonald, Wilson)this turned out to be a good primer. Its strength lies in that (outside from a few quotes from Testimony) it stays away from the Volkov controversy and focuses mostly on facts (i.e. who Zhdanov, Sollertinsky, Meyerhold were, the political horrors of Stalin, his major works in relationship to his life). For those searching for a book a that isn't too daunting, but will still give them a thorough introduction, this is a good start.
Average customer rating:
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Selected Letters Of Sergei Prokofiev
Manufacturer: Northeastern University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Prokofiev, Sergey
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Sergei Prokofiev: A Biography
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Prokofiev--A Biography: From Russia to the West 1891-1935
ASIN: 1555533477 |
Book Description
One of the most important and influential composers of the twentieth century, Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) was also a prolific and gifted writer. Besides producing diaries, short stories, dramas, reviews, and the libretti for his own operas, Prokofiev conducted lively and frequent correspondence with family friends, classmates, and notable cultural figures in the Soviet Union and abroad.
This engaging volume collects for the first time in English the most representative and enlightening of Prokofiev's letters, including some previously suppressed missives that have never before been published. Expertly translated and annotated by Harlow Robinson, the correspondence presented here covers Prokofiev's earliest years at St. Petersburg Conservatory, his extensive worldwide travels, and his return to Moscow. Among the correspondents are childhood friend Vera Alpers, harpist Eleonora Damskaya, ballet impresario Sergei Diaghilev, theatrical director Vsevolod Meyerhold, Soviet critic Boris Asafiev, composers Vernon Duke and Nikolai Miaskovsky, soprano Nina Koshetz, musicologist Nicolas Slonimsky, violinist Jascha Heifetz, conductor Serge Koussevitsky, and film director Sergei Eisenstein.
Prokofiev vividly describes, often with dramatic flair and a quirky sense of humor, concerts, performances, his compositions, political events, and meetings with other musicians and composers. His observations are peppered with musical gossip as well as eccentric, original, and disarmingly apolitical insights. Like his music, the writing style is laconic, brisk and tart, full of energy.
Taken together, the letters provide a cultural and musical history unequaled in the correspondence of any other modern composer. This indispensable edition will shed new light on Prokofiev's misunderstood life and career, illuminate his creative processes and aesthetic principles, and introduce his exceptional literary talents to those already captivated by his musical genius.
Customer Reviews:
Commande.......2000-02-01
Je veux acheter ce livre. Comment je peux le commander depuis la France
Average customer rating:
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Tchaikovsky: A Self-Portrait
Alexandra Orlova
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Tchaikovsky, Peter
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ASIN: 019315319X |
Book Description
This unique documentary biography is the first to draw on the composer's own private documents--over 5,000 letters, his diaries, and articles--to present the most complete and compelling picture ever of his turbulent life and work. Linking the documents with concise, explanatory comments,
Orlova charts chronologically the events of his life and sheds new light on all aspects of his personality, including his methods of working and his views on such subjects as philosophy, religion, literature, and music. Of particular interest is the clear evidence Orlova presents for the theory
that Tchaikovsky did not die of cholera in 1893, but committed suicide to preserve his honor and cover up a personal scandal. Suppressed in the Russian edition of the book, the suicide theory has since been corroborated by another source and receives its fullest exposition to date in this
English-language edition.
Customer Reviews:
Absolutely engrossing.......1999-10-22
This is a wonderful book. The technique of editing Tchaikovsky's actual and voluminous correspondence into one coherent stream makes for fascinating and tasty reading. Tchaikovsky's intelligence is made obvious, as is his exquisite sensitivity, keen perception, expressivity, and personal charm. I was reading a standard biography at the same time I was reading this, and the comparison did not flatter the standard format. There is no substitute for the "real deal". We are lucky to have this first person record of his "in the moment" thoughts. It is sad that letter writing is a dead practice because it disciplines the writer's mind and reveals much to the lucky reader. This book has given me extraordinary pleasure.
Book Description
Since 1991—the year that marked both the fall of the Soviet Union and the centenary of Sergey Prokofiev's birth—a new assessment of the renowned composer's life and work has become both possible and necessary. In this engrossing book, David Nice draws on a remarkable range of previously unexamined sources to present that reassessment. The book follows Prokofiev's personal and musical progression from his childhood on a Ukrainian country estate to the years he spent traveling in America and Europe as an acclaimed interpreter of his own works. Nice sheds new light on Prokofiev's early years at the St. Petersburg Conservatoire, his departure from Russia in 1918 for what he thought would be a short tour of America, and his marriage and family relationships. He considers the music of Prokofiev's years in the west (long dismissed by Soviet musicologists as decadent work weakened by the composer's absence from the motherland), moving from the lyricism of his St Petersburg years to the fresh simplicity of his early Soviet scores. Nice also examines the complex reasons which led Prokofiev to move his family to the Soviet Union in 1936. A second volume will cover Prokofiev's life from this period to his death in 1953.
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